Every Song You Hear Seems to Say
by SkywardShadow
Summary: Normally it takes an entire houseful of Uchihas to make Sasuke want to throw himself out of the nearest tenth-story window. Sasuke's beloved brother and his insane fiance are managing it all by themselves. (Oneshot, ItaShi, BOTB 'verse)


**A/N: Tried to post this on the day, but ffnet was having issues. Ah well. Merry belated Christmas, all~**

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_Every Song You Hear Seems to Say_

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Sasuke looks down at the dinner table and contemplates slitting his wrists with a butter knife.

Too messy, he decides at length, and sighs. Itachi and Shisui only own the one tablecloth and the former would be pissed if he got blood all over it. He's just going to have to suck it up and resign himself to the mother of all awkward Christmas dinners.

It's hardly the first time such a gathering has forced Sasuke to consider offing himself (he's made something of a game of it over the years, and gotten pretty creative as well—his personal favorite so far has been the notion of hanging himself with a holly garland over the fireplace, like some gruesome stocking). After all, his family isn't exactly known for its partying abilities. Sasuke discovered at a young age that his family gatherings had a long and glorious tradition of being both horrendously boring and devoid of any warmth whatsoever. There are a few memorable incidents in the history of the family Uchiha that live on, such as whatever had happened during a Christmas party Great Uncle Madara hosted many eons ago that resulted in an alcohol ban for any such gatherings to this very day, but generally speaking they yield nothing but a further darkening of the black pit that comprises Sasuke's soul.

This, however, is truly something special. Normally it takes an entire houseful of Uchihas to make Sasuke want to throw himself out of the nearest tenth-story window.

Sasuke's beloved brother and his insane fiancé (or, well, almost) are managing it all by themselves.

"Turkey coming through," Shisui announces cheerfully, ripping Sasuke out of his gloomy reverie. A plate is placed in the center of the dinner table, a golden-brown turkey steaming atop it. It smells good and doesn't appear to be on fire, which makes Sasuke raise an eyebrow.

Shisui notices and glances around quickly before muttering, "Your brother didn't have anything to do with it; no worries."

"How did you manage to stop him this time?" Sasuke asks out of the corner of his mouth.

"Made up some story about the turkey brand he'd bought recalling all their birds due to salmonella, or something," Shisui answers. "About twenty minutes before you showed up. He didn't have time to cook a new one. Luckily, his wonderful fiancé just so happened to have a store-bought, pre-cooked one sitting arou-"

Itachi chooses that moment to enter the kitchen with a bowl full of mashed potatoes, which shuts Shisui up immediately. Of course, given the way he blanched at realizing he'd essentially jinxed his chances with the whole fiancé thing, he might've shut up anyway.

(It's become something of a running gag within their little family unit that Itachi, so irritatingly prodigious at virtually everything else, is an absolute menace in the kitchen. Sasuke isn't convinced that his brother's cooking doesn't qualify somewhere as cruel and unusual punishment, and yet every year Itachi _still_ insists on trying, which means that Sasuke—and now Shisui—need to come up with ever more inventive excuses to stop him. Sasuke would have thought that the Great Unintentional Thanksgiving Bonfire of 2012 would have been enough to make Itachi give up the ghost, but no, apparently it will take someone actually sustaining third-degree burns to drive that point home. In recent years Sasuke has seriously begun to consider making that happen.

Naturally the "someone" would need to be Shisui.)

Itachi pulls off his lurid purple oven mitts (Sasuke questions Shisui's birthday choices, he truly does) and sets them aside.

"Should we all sit down, then?" he ventures, pulling out a chair. Shisui sits down as well and then they all just sort of studiously avoid looking at each other and otherwise don't move.

This is exactly why Sasuke had wanted to off himself _before_ dinner started.

There's a long moment where Sasuke isn't even sure what he's _doing_ here. There had been something of an uproar among his relatives when he'd mentioned he was going to be having Christmas dinner with the family's resident vaguely-incestuous-but-happy couple, some scoffing from Aunt Uruchi and some disappointment from his mother (although to her credit, she and his father were the only ones who didn't try to stop him going), but he'd done Thanksgiving exclusively with his parents and damn if he isn't going to spend some time with his brother now.

Just because the rest of the family had been all too happy to disown Itachi doesn't mean Sasuke has to go along with it.

And fine, he isn't one hundred percent opposed to seeing Shisui now and again either. The three of them had made a pretty good group when they were younger, although Shisui had started dragging Itachi off on more and more "no squirts allowed" adventures as time had gone on (in retrospect, Sasuke feels sort of like a moron for not seeing the whole gay thing coming).

Sasuke had been suspicious of the whole relationship at first, some part of him always worrying that Shisui—who takes absolutely nothing seriously—considered Itachi a fling. But then recently his idiot cousin had revealed his intentions to get off his ass and put a ring on it, as the saying went, and Sasuke had swallowed his homicidal (protective, he means protective) instincts and started doing his level best to be supportive even if it killed him.

He really wishes 'supportive' didn't need to include Christmas dinner, though.

"Dig in!" Shisui bursts out, apparently unable to stand the awkward silence any longer and making Itachi and Sasuke jump out of their skin. At least it forces them to unfreeze themselves. Sasuke scoops himself a massive helping of potatoes. At least if their mouths are all full they'll have an _excuse_ to say absolutely nothing to each other.

_And this is just the beginning_, Sasuke realizes mournfully, mouth full of starch. Maybe that's why he is so on edge. He knows exactly what's coming as soon as Shisui can get him out of the apartment. Never mind that technically _Shisui_ had been the one to extend the dinner invitation in the first place. He's going to start getting impatient as soon as the food is gone, because Sasuke is convinced that his cousin is actually a five-year-old, and before he knows it Sasuke is going to find himself kicked out and the future of his relationship with both of them hovering dangerously in midair.

Oh yes. Sasuke knows what's coming, even if his freakishly intelligent big brother does not, and for once that doesn't make him feel anything resembling smug.

By the end of the night, he might actually have to admit being related to Shisui in a concrete way.

Sasuke begins to chew his food very, very slowly.

Really, he reflects as they eat, this whole evening had been destined for disaster very early on, despite all of Sasuke's attempts to avoid it. He'd shown up with his gifts exactly on time (because he's learned from experience just what delightful flavor of trauma results from showing up early when the happy couple is alone together) and knocked on the apartment door. Loudly, in order to let those inside know without a doubt that company had arrived.

He'd waited precisely twelve seconds before doing so again. And again.

He'd been about to give in and just start pounding on the door when it was finally opened and a predictably disheveled-looking Shisui was suddenly looking at him with annoyance.

"Okay, so just to be clear…you know that spare key Itachi gave you wasn't just for decoration, right?"

"Move," Sasuke had told him, "or you don't get your present."

Shisui's eyes had lit up and Sasuke had done his level best to keep the smirk from showing. Yes, his brother's boyfriend was still an idiot, but he was finally learning how to handle him. Method number one: distract him with something shiny to prevent him from asking asinine questions. (Incidentally, he'd used that spare key once and only once, for a surprise visit, and had it melted down afterwards. There was a damn good reason why people normally _knocked_, and he'd vowed never to forget it again.)

He'd edged past Shisui, pointedly not saying anything about his dress shirt buttons being misaligned and fighting the instinctive urge to claw his eyes out. The apartment was modestly decorated for Christmas (which leads Sasuke to believe that Itachi had put his foot down at some point; otherwise he probably would've walked in to red and green wallpaper and mistletoe over every doorframe). One of them had procured a small tree that was veritably dripping with tinsel and little ornaments, and the delicious scent of turkey had filled the air.

It had smelled good, providing Sasuke with a welcome distraction from the way his brother was still trying to tame his hair when he came out to greet him (and Sasuke had refused, fucking _refused_ to think the words 'sex hair' for the sake of his already fragile sanity). Hell, it still smells good, even if it is now in danger of getting stuck in his throat. Probably intentionally.

As if reading his younger cousin's mind Shisui clears his own throat and says, too cheerily in Sasuke's opinion, "Turkey's good."

Itachi raises an eyebrow. "It should be, considering it is store-bought."

"Right." Shisui sounds sheepish, and Sasuke masks his snort as a cough.

Itachi isn't fooled, and he looks like he's starting to despair of them both. It's a familiar look. "Your lack of faith in my cooking abilities is disheartening," he informs them.

"My lack of faith in your cooking abilities is _justified_," Shisui retorts.

"This coming from the person who used salt instead of sugar in a certain birthday cake because, and I quote, 'they looked alike'."

"But they do! And anyway, I'm not the one who almost burned down the entire apartment complex trying to make _stuffing_."

"He sort of has you there," Sasuke says before he can stop himself. Truth be told, there's precious little that he and Shisui can actually agree on, but Itachi's designation as World's Worst Cook has never been a disputed fact.

Itachi opens his mouth, closes it again, and glares at both of them.

"Teaming up is hardly sportsmanlike," he says.

"Sorry, 'tachi," Shisui replies, the attempted sympathetic tone completely ruined by his badly hidden glee. Sasuke's going to go out on a limb here and say his cousin doesn't win domestic disputes all that often, which isn't surprising in the least. "Sasuke and I are just trying to prevent a public safety hazard. Protect innocent kittens and all that. Right, squirt?"

"I will maim you if you call me that again," Sasuke tells him in what he personally thinks is a very pleasant and reasonable way. Certainly more than Shisui deserves on principle.

And then Shisui starts bemoaning how cruel his baby cousin is while Sasuke rolls his eyes and out of the corner of them he can see Itachi smiling in a way that manages to be both exasperated and horribly fond, and abruptly it occurs to Sasuke that this feels bizarrely…normal. His cousin is dating his brother, who has gone from family prodigy and darling to complete outcast overnight, and Sasuke might need to call his uncle's son his own brother-in-law after tonight (which he's still refusing to think about), and for all of that this still feels like them. It still feels like it did when they were kids, Sasuke and Shisui sniping at each other while Itachi looks indulgently on, at least until Shisui decides it's Itachi's turn to be picked on (at which point Itachi will start sharpening his seemingly endless supply of verbal barbs and firing them off with deadly accuracy). It feels like it always has. It feels like Sasuke's own little fucked-up family unit within the larger circle, some strange set of dynamics that has always been exclusive to the three of them.

He's still pretty damn sure he doesn't want his brother legally bound to their idiot of a cousin, mind, and he'd be lying if he said he wouldn't be relieved if Itachi answered Shisui's proposal with some variation on 'we should wait awhile before jumping into anything'.

But going from the way his brother is looking at Shisui right now (and yes, Sasuke is feeling the appropriate levels of nausea), an outright 'no' isn't looking too likely. And maybe, just maybe, Itachi and Shisui eventually tying the knot _might_ not take the number one spot on Sasuke's List of Things That Make Him Want To Die.

Maybe. The night is young, after all, and the Christmas spirit is high and that always makes people feel like sappy little shits, in Sasuke's opinion, so he'll probably wake up tomorrow and wonder how the hell he ever contemplated accepting Shisui as his future brother-in-law without putting up a fight.

For now, though, this is okay. This feels pretty damn good, actually, so Sasuke relaxes back in his seat and watches Itachi and Shisui banter with each other and does something unprecedented for an Uchiha family Christmas—he enjoys himself.

_Fin_


End file.
